City Gym Shorts – KCW

As a knitter and a sewer, I often find myself drooling over the adorable little projects on Purl Soho’s blog, The Purl Bee. The projects are often very simple, and seriously over the top cute. Unfortunately they also make me want to buy all of their products! I love the way they stage and photograph everything.

Everyone seems to have made their City Gym Shorts, one of their free patterns and tutorials, and it’s been on my to-make list for awhile. Sooooo, for KCW I decided to whip up some for my girls. The theme this season is Traveling, and what’s better for girls to wear while traveling than cute little shorts?

It was very easy to select fabric for these too. I had purchased some Red Rover corduroy from the Small World fabric collection by Made By Rae. I actually purchased a few prints from the collection. I mean it’s organic baby corduroy with super fun designs on them! I let my girls choose which prints they wanted, and I enjoyed watching them struggle over selecting only one! I ended up ordering a few though because I couldn’t help myself…

I used some mini floral vintage bias tape I had purchased through Etsy a few years ago. I had just enough for the shorts, plus some to add to the waste band for contrast. These rovers just remind me of vintage dog images I’ve seen in antique shops. I love them! You can even see our little rover peeking from behind. He’s always tagging along with us, although I think most of the time it’s to catch a crumb or snatch a snack from a little unsuspecting hand.

I didn’t match up the pattern well on the fabric, but I just didn’t have enough to even try to. This is actually leftover from a criss cross top I made for my little one (she’s the one that picked the dogs).

I cut out a size 4-5 for my four year old. Her waist is 21″, and these fit her very well. I followed the instructions exactly, then when I secured the elastic, I overlapped about an inch and sewed a square. The waist is perfect, just enough room for a full food belly.

As soon as I finished the Red Rover pair, I had to make another because they’re so easy and fast! I couldn’t believe how simple and cute they turned out. I had this striped fabric leftover from an apron I made years ago.

Of course I also used some vintage bias tape a retired sewer gifted me. I like the bright pink contrast, and my girl loves pink so it’ll match lots of her tops.

I’m really happy with these shorts and how they turned out. They were a joy to sew up, and I’m glad KCW gave me an excuse to do so! I’ve mostly been working on the fitting of my OAL dress (wow, lots of fitting issues for me!), and continuously knitting my cardigan to finish on time, so taking a week off to work on projects for the girls is fun!

Are you participating in Kids Clothes Week? It’s such a fun way to push me a little more to finish clothes for my girls and share them!